American Cinematographer - May 2021 - 59

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM

to form a collective with six men
because men had the power. For
the men, it was important that
they have at least one woman
in the group, and I was the most
obvious woman in San Francisco
because I had been president of
the union. "
Cine Manifest's Northern Lights
(1978), shot in black-and-white
by Irola and directed by Hanson
and Nilsson, was a fictionalized
account of the Nonpartisan
League political movement of the
early 20th century. Working on
location in North Dakota under
harsh wintry conditions at age 29,
Irola knew she had a lot to prove.
" I'd never shot a feature in my
life! " she said. " We didn't see any
footage for weeks. No one treated me like a second-class citizen.
When you have that kind of
support when you're that young,
it's amazing. "
Northern Lights won the
Caméra d'Or at the 1979 Cannes
Film Festival, but by that time
Cine Manifest had already disbanded. " We wanted our films to
appeal to large audiences, but
we were barely able to support
ourselves, " Irola said. (She revisited this formative experience
in her 2006 documentary Cine
Manifest.)
Irola moved to New York,
landing without a job or contacts.
It was 1977, and NABET Local
15 only represented commercial
cinematographers, and the IATSE
camera guild, Local 644, was
impossible to join. Using a commercial union card, Irola began
shooting news and documentaries as a freelancer, contributing
to 60 Minutes, 20/20, Nova, the
BBC, Channel 4, Canal Plus, and
others.
She soon met Tom Schiller, a
writer for NBC's Saturday Night
Live, and they collaborated on

eight shorts he wrote and directed for the show, among them
La Dolce Gilda, starring Gilda
Radner, and Don't Look Back in
Anger, starring John Belushi. She
also began shooting non-union
features, and when director Lizzie
Borden's Working Girls bowed
to exceptional reviews in 1986,
the union took notice, fining Irola
$4,000. She fought back and
gained amnesty, but the union still
refused her membership, so, in
1989, she moved to Los Angeles.
Returning to television, Irola
shot the medical drama Lifestories and numerous moviesof-the-week. She also landed
a feature, Everett Lewis' An
Ambush of Ghosts, for which
she won the 1993 Sundance Film
Festival Award for Excellence in

Frames from Judy Irola, ASC's documentary Niger '66: A Peace
Corps Diary (2010).

MAY 2021 / 59

p.58-61 In Memoriam - Judy Irola V4 DONE.indd 59

4/5/21 11:31 PM



http://www.ASCMAG.COM

American Cinematographer - May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2021

Contents
American Cinematographer - May 2021 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - May 2021 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - May 2021 - 1
American Cinematographer - May 2021 - Contents
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American Cinematographer - May 2021 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - May 2021 - Cover4
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